I’m pleased
to add my welcome to everyone at this, the formal opening of
the 169th year of this venerable institution. Class
of ’09 and all other new students, faculty, and staff: we
are delighted to have you with us. Class of ‘06, seniors
at last, congratulations! It would be an understatement to say
you are in high spirits.

Each year,
as we begin anew, the buzz and energy of the community are palpable
(maybe even deafening).
We can’t help but feel
refreshed and inspired by the privilege of being part of this
extraordinary institution.

Our privilege
is especially evident in light of the terrible
devastation of Katrina along with the impending anniversary
of the horrific
9/11 terrorist attacks. Our hearts go out to all who have lost
so much in these tragedies. I am so relieved and pleased to
report that all of our own students from the Gulf region are
accounted
for, although sadly some of their families have suffered considerable
property loss. The College has joined with other colleges and
higher ed associations in reaching out to New Orleans-based
colleges and
universities, and we’ve already enrolled some visiting
students; this effort is ongoing under the leadership of Jane
Brown and Lee
Bowie. A number of faculty and staff have generously offered
housing. CAUSE, the student-run community service organization,
advised
by Anita MacGovern, is coordinating campus-based fundraising
and other initiatives to lend a helping hand. We’ll keep
our Web site updated on these efforts.

In such a troubled
world, this College seems even more a haven and a place of hopefulness.
Indeed, the very existence of this
College – improbable from the start – is worthy
of celebration. Who would think that an impoverished female
educator from western
Massachusetts in the early nineteenth century would have
had the vision and savvy to implement such a big idea and
that
this
idea
would
continue
to have such resonance generation after generation on into
the present, despite the odds against it.

That big idea
is that women, not just men, should be educated to the highest
standard of academic excellence, and that
they should
make a positive difference in the world. This was a radical
idea at the time. Then and throughout human history, higher
education
for women and leadership by women had been a rarity, the
exception rather than the rule.

To be sure,
tremendous progress has been made in women’s
education in the past 169 years. Instead of being excluded
from educational opportunity, women are now the majority of
matriculants in this country. Indeed, one might be lulled into
thinking
that
all the battles have been won, that women are now on
an equal footing with men in the world. If you think that, you
might
also think
that this College, therefore, should declare victory
for women’s
education and go coed.

Do you think
that? Neither do I! Now, more than ever, the world needs Mount
Holyoke College – the
longest standing women’s
college in the world – to advocate for women’s
education and advancement. It is distressing to consider
how slowly even
basic education is reaching all the women of the world.
Indeed, some of you are from countries where opportunities
for many women
remain bleak. So too do many of you Frances Perkins
students know firsthand that women in this country
without a
college degree
struggle against enormous odds.

And consider
as well how slowly women’s leadership is infiltrating
the higher reaches of power and influence. Women
account for over 45% of America’s workforce and for less
than 8% of its top managers. And those female managers
make only 72% of what their
male counterparts earn. Only 2 women have ever served
on the U.S. Supreme Court and only one remains. Only
14 of 100 senators are
women. In fact, it is embarrassing that the U.S.
ranks 60th out of 180 countries in terms of women’s
representation on national legislatures or parliaments.

Taking the
long view of women through the millennia of history, then, you
could say that women’s education is still in
its infancy and women’s leadership is the world’s
most underused natural resource.

Not so at Mount
Holyoke, though. Here we draw inspiration from Mary Lyon who
believed in the
transformative
power of education
and the transformative power of women to engage
with men in what she called the “great work of renovating
the world.” She
urged her students: “Go where no one else
will go. Do what no one else will do,” and
successive generations of graduates heeded her
call, becoming pioneers in a number of fields
and founding
schools and colleges across this country and
in Canada, Argentina, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey,
Armenia, Persia, India, China, Japan,
Hong Kong, and South Africa, and serving as president
or principal of over a hundred others. Several
of the schools they founded served
people excluded from traditional educational
systems:
Native Americans, African Americans, the blind,
the deaf, the educationally impaired.

On this
campus we celebrate women’s leadership
and achievement and even name buildings after
women – Mary Lyon, Mary Woolley,
Elizabeth Mead, Emma Carr, Lydia Shattuck,
Cornelia Clapp, Ruth MacGregor, Harriet Newhall,
and others
are memorialized in bricks
and mortar. In the world at large, in contrast,
women’s contributions
are much more invisible and uncelebrated. And,
more to the point, the continuing deprivation
of women in many parts of the world
not only to education but to basic human dignity
remains a disgrace.

From the very
beginning, this College has stood as a beacon for women
and has had influence
well beyond
its
small size.
You,
the students here now, are standing in a
long line of women who have
accomplished amazing things. So too will
you.

That may seem
totally improbable to you. Right now, you are probably focused
on the
immediate
tasks at
hand:
settling into your room,
getting online, starting your classes,
as well you should. Furthermore, that larger
world may
seem pretty
overwhelming:
terrorism, natural
catastrophes, poverty, war, geopolitical
and global forces of daunting complexity.
You may
feel very
small and very
limited in what you
can do.

While some
of you may have a clear idea of the path you are on and the role
you
would
like to
play, some
of you
may not. And
that’s fine, that’s normal.
Your life plan will not come full blown,
like Athena from the head of Zeus. It
will gradually
take shape and evolve over the years.
But this we know: you will come back
again
and again for inspiration to your time
at this
College, and it will not let you down.

What you can
do now is open yourself up to possibility; try things, purposefully
engage
in your studies
and the life
of this College.
Education is the process of becoming,
and
there’s no better
place to stretch and grow than at this
College.

And, the magical
thing about a fine liberal arts education is that
while you are
studying ancient
Greek or philosophy
or chemistry
or political science, you are all the
while developing the skills, the knowledge,
and
the habits of
mind that will help
to prepare
you for life in the complex world that
is your inheritance.

Furthermore,
while this campus may appear bucolic and removed, it is,
in fact,
a microcosm of
the world with
people of
different races, ethnicities, religions,
ages, cultural experiences,
political views, socioeconomic
statuses, sexual orientations, countries of
birth, and more. We seek out this
diversity because we believe that a
diverse community offers tremendous
opportunities for learning and
enrichment. But, like
everything else
at this College,
to get the most out of it, you
need to actively engage with it.

Seek out people
who may at first seem different from you. Help us
to achieve
the goals
articulated in
the final report
of
the Diverse Community Commission
coming out this fall. Help us
to be a place that supports and celebrates
the uniqueness of each of
our members. Help us to model
the world as we want it to be.

And connect
to that world too. Use the new Center for Global Initiatives
to
plan study
and work
abroad experiences.
Use the Weissman Center
and the Center for the Environment
to hone your leadership skills
and to engage
with
important public issues.
Enjoy athletics – including
a new intramural program, SGA,
clubs, cultural houses, and more.

And while you
are fully engaged with the Mount Holyoke of the present,
help us to
plan the
College of the
future. We’ve made good
progress over the summer in the
design of the proposed new residence
hall. Now we’re eager for
your advice and criticism because
you, unlike us, know firsthand
what it’s like to live
out there in the residential
precincts.
With the help of the SGA, we’ll
hold an open forum early in the
semester to hear from you. If
this project is approved by the
board,
the lucky class of '09
will get a chance to live in
this splendid new building, which
we
hope to open in the fall of '08.
But the rest of you will not
be excluded. This is your campus
forever
and you will partake
of its magic over and over again
as returning alumnae in the years
ahead.

Finally, let
me mention that we’ll continue the
new tradition begun last year
of Community Breakfasts: the
first is Thursday,
September 22 at 8 am in Blanchard.
Everyone is invited. Do roll
out of bed and join us. So
too will I continue to hold open
office
hours in Blanchard and get
around to the dorms for teas. Stop by.
I hope to see many of you there
as well as out and about around
the campus, starting at the
Community Picnic immediately following
this event.

It’s terrific
to see everyone here and ready
to go. On behalf of all of
us in the administration, best
wishes to all of you for
a most productive and fulfilling
year.